


All I Want

by antonomasia09



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Altean Shiro (Voltron), Altean Voltron Paladins, Alternate Universe, Evil Zarkon (Voltron), Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Gen, Harm to Children, Hurt Shiro (Voltron), POV Hunk (Voltron), POV Shiro (Voltron), Paladins in training, Prisoner Shiro (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Shiro loses his arm, Unofficial Sequel, Younger Voltron Paladins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 09:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16616033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antonomasia09/pseuds/antonomasia09
Summary: In the wake of Zarkon's betrayal of the Alteans, there's a lot of suspicion directed towards the Black Paladin-in-training.  That only gets worse when Shiro and the Black Lion vanish in the middle of the night.





	All I Want

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Keep Your Head Down Low](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10429917) by [BossToaster (ChaoticReactions)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticReactions/pseuds/BossToaster). 



> This was written as a sequel to BossToaster's fic [Keep Your Head Down Low](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10429917), and also inspired by her [Paladins in Training AU](http://bosstoaster.tumblr.com/tagged/Paladin-Training-AU) tag on tumblr. Infinite thanks to my beta reader alyyks for her suggestions and encouragement, and for her many ideas about evil things that can be done to Shiro.
> 
> A note of warning: as in BossToaster's fic, the characters are younger than they are in canon. Shiro is ~15; Keith, Hunk, and Lance are ~13; and Pidge is ~11. If 15-year-old Shiro being deliberately hurt makes you uncomfortable, please stay safe and don't read this.

After the whole… debacle over Keith being Galra, things settled down a bit. Not completely - there was a war on, after all, and the instructors were still too quick to find fault with the young paladins-in-training (Shiro in particular) for Hunk’s liking. But Hunk no longer felt hopeless, like they were spiraling down towards certain doom. Until Shiro disappeared, along with the Black Lion.

This time, when the team was stuck in a room, the door was very conspicuously locked from the outside.

Keith was pulled out for questioning first, and he returned in handcuffs, his knuckles red, and his shoulders stiff. Hunk hardly ever saw Keith cry, but he looked like he wanted to right now.

“What did you do to him?” Lance shouted at the guards, then turned to Keith when none of them answered. “Hey! What did they do to you?”

Keith didn’t answer, didn’t even look at Lance, just stared straight ahead and tried to keep his face composed.

When the guards went to take Pidge next, she tried to bite them. They handcuffed her too, before leading her away. One tossed the key to Keith’s cuffs at Lance, who caught it on reflex, his mouth open in horror.

Keith slumped the moment the door closed. Hunk and Lance rushed over to him, Lance fumbling with the cuffs until they fell away.

“Did they hurt you?” Hunk asked. There was a time when it would have been unthinkable. But he’d seen too many glares directed at Keith in recent days, heard too many whispers. He ran a critical eye over Keith, checking as best he could without actually touching.

Keith shook his head. “I punched a few of them, but none of them hit me back,” he said, then paused. “Iverson was gloating. Said he’d been waiting for this to happen ever since the war started. He thinks Shiro took the Black Lion and went to join Zarkon. Wants to know if any of us helped him.”

“That’s insane!” Lance exclaimed. “Even after everything they’ve done to him, Shiro just wants to help.”

“Besides,” Hunk added, “If he’d really switched sides, he could have done a whole lot of damage here with his Lion before he left. ”

“I know,” Keith said grimly. “I’m not the one who needs convincing.”

They were all quiet for a moment, thinking. Then, Hunk ventured quietly, “Shiro wouldn’t just leave us. If he’s gone, it’s because he was kidnapped by Zarkon. They know that as well as we do, even if they don’t want to admit it. But they’re not going to try to rescue him, are they?”

“I don’t think so,” Keith replied, equally low. “They want the Lion back. They don’t really care if they get Shiro along with it.”

Lance got that gleam in his eye, the one he always got when he was planning on doing something against the rules. This time, though, he looked angry too. “So I guess we’ll just have to do it ourselves then,” he said.

Hunk had a terrible feeling about this. Standing up to the instructors when they were being unfair was one thing, but what Lance was proposing went way beyond that. This time, it was worth it, though. For Shiro.

***

Shiro had never found Zarkon intimidating before. Not like this. Difficult to please, certainly, and with a reputation that Shiro had struggled to live up to, but he’d never looked at Shiro with cold calculation and no trace of friendliness in his face. Shiro swallowed and sat straighter in his hard metal chair.

“You know why you’re here, I presume,” Zarkon said.

Shiro had no idea where _here_ was, other than a small room featuring a table, two chairs, and a guarded door. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten here either - he’d gone to sleep in his own bed after a long day of training and woken up seated, with restraints on his wrists and ankles. But he did know why Zarkon wanted him.

Shiro nodded, a sharp dip of his head. “The Black Lion can have only one pilot,” he said. “You want me to transfer the bond back to you. Killing me won’t do it, or else I would already be dead. Failing that, you want me to fly her on your behalf.” A decaphoeb ago, the idea that Zarkon might hurt Shiro would have been laughable. Then again, so would the idea of Zarkon turning against Altea.

Zarkon smiled, though Shiro thought the expression was menacing rather than reassuring. “Clever boy. The Alteans made a good choice, selecting you as my successor.”

Part of Shiro lit up at the compliment, as it always had for Zarkon’s grudging praise. The words were everything he had been craving for the past few phoebs — reassurance that he was worthy to be a paladin, confirmation that he wasn’t as useless as the instructors had been making him feel.

He squashed that part of himself down. Compliments meant nothing, coming from a traitor.

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that you would join me willingly?” Zarkon continued. “I am aware of the way that you have been mistreated ever since my defection.”

How could he know that? There must be a spy in King Alfor’s ranks. Likely more than one, in fact. How many of the instructors were working for Zarkon, Shiro wondered? Had he asked them to publicly cast doubt on Shiro’s motivations, to be overly critical of Shiro’s efforts?

“I won’t betray my people,” Shiro said. “I’m not like you.”

“The Alteans are _not_ my people,” Zarkon snarled, baring his fangs. Shiro couldn’t help jerking back, but Zarkon got control of himself quickly, the flash of temper vanishing to be replaced by an aura of sickly sweetness. “In spite of their suspicions, their petty punishments, you would still take their side?” Zarkon leaned closer, and Shiro had to fight not to shrink away.

“Nobody is coming for you,” the Emperor said. “The Alteans think you’ve been working for me this whole time — even if you escape and make it home, they’ll never believe that I had you kidnapped. You’ll be spending the rest of your life in a cell. I can give you a comfortable life here, or I can take what I want from you and let you suffer the consequences. Better to give in now, and save yourself the pain.”

Zarkon was right, Shiro knew. He would never be able to convince the instructors of what had actually happened to him. Even ordinary Alteans he’d never met before had been eyeing him with suspicion on the rare occasions he left the Garrison. The best he could hope for after this was an offer of clemency once the war ended, assuming he could convince King Alfor that he wasn’t a threat.

Zarkon was probably right about being able to wrestle control of the Black Lion from Shiro as well. Shiro was young, and the bond was still so new. He’d never even formed Voltron with the other paladins, let alone unlocked her wings. Zarkon, on the other hand, had been with her for deca-phoebs, and done some of the most impressive flying Shiro had ever seen.

None of that mattered, though. Not Zarkon’s threats, not the Alteans’ suspicions. Because there was one thing more important than all of them: Shiro’s team. For their sake, Shiro would fight to his last breath to keep control of the Black Lion out of Zarkon’s hands.

Shiro shook his head. “I won’t help you.”

Zarkon sighed. Shiro told himself that it was all an act, an attempt at manipulation, but the disappointment on his former mentor’s face still hurt. 

“Then you know what comes next,” Zarkon said.

Shiro did, in a theoretical sort of way; Alteans didn’t believe in sheltering their children from the harshness of life. So, as part of his paladin training, Shiro had been informed about the possibility of torture, and had been given suggestions as to how to endure. He wasn’t sure how helpful they would be - it was one thing to read about breathing exercises in a textbook and another to use them in real life. - but at least he wasn’t completely unprepared.

He glared his defiance at Zarkon even as Galran sentries grabbed his arms and pulled him out the door into a dim purple hallway. It didn’t matter what they did to him; he would never give up his Lion.

***

Quintents later, Shiro’s conviction was running thin. He was freezing cold in a lightweight prisoner jumpsuit, ached all over from beatings delivered by Galran sentries and the occasional living soldier, and couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten or slept. Shiro wedged himself in the corner of his cell, and pretended that two walls would be enough to keep him safe.

It turned out that the breathing exercises had helped a bit, until a sentry kicked him in the chest hard enough to snap ribs. After that, Shiro tried his best not to think about breathing at all.

He also tried not to think about how much longer he could hold out. Shiro was becoming numb to the beatings, as long as they stayed away from especially sensitive areas, but he knew he was getting weaker. If he’d ever had a chance at escape, that time was long past. At this point, Shiro didn’t think he could stand, let alone run.

After Shiro refused to give in for the second or third time, his torturers added shock rods and knives to their repertoire. After the fifth or sixth, Zarkon casually mentioned that Honerva was looking for test subjects for experiments she’d never been allowed to perform on Altea. Shiro shuddered, twitched, muscles still spasming even though electricity was no longer flowing through them, but shook his head.

His one comfort was the Black Lion. She felt oddly distant and somewhat confused, but still a bright spot of kindness in the neverending cycle of suffering his life had become. Shiro wrapped himself up in her offered warmth and closed his eyes, and let himself drift away until metal hands dragged him out from his corner once again.

***

Zarkon and Honerva had invited Shiro over to dinner one night, shortly after Shiro had begun his paladin training. Honerva had cooked a delicious Bluvian blorbeast stew for them, but Shiro had been too focused on answering Zarkon’s questions properly and not dripping stew on his fancy new clothing to eat much. She wasn’t offended, just packed some of the leftovers up for him to take back to his quarters.

Now, as she stood over him with a whirring sawblade, all he could think about was that it had been ages since he had a good blorbeast stew.

It was better than thinking about what she was going to do to him.

Shiro clung to the memory of that dinner even as he felt the sawblade bite into his right arm, the ache of all the cuts and bruises and burns the Galra had inflicted on him over the past few movements fading into the background, until the pain tore the memory to shreds. Oh gods, the blade was going far too deep - she was actually going to take his arm off, wasn’t she? How could he pilot his Lion with only one arm? A lot of the control was mental, true, but he’d been taught to translate that into physical lever pulls and button presses. He had no idea how to fly using nothing but his mind.

There was a rushing noise in his ears, or maybe that was his own screams, and it grew until it swallowed him whole. All of a sudden, Shiro was no longer strapped to a table in a lab in Zarkon’s fortress; instead, he was standing on dark clouds, surrounded by a curtain of stars. For the first time in forever nothing hurt, but when he glanced down at himself, his right arm was more transparent than the rest of him.

This must be the astral plane. He’d been told of its existence, but he wasn’t supposed to be able to reach it yet, not until he’d piloted the Black Lion for years.

Sure enough, there she was in front of him, sitting crouched. Her eyes glowed, but he could sense nothing from her.

“Fool. You think you can defeat me here?”

Shiro whipped around, bringing his arms up and bending his knees. Zarkon was standing behind him, smirking. As far as Shiro could see, the Emperor had no weapons, although he didn’t need any. Shiro had seen Zarkon spar with the other paladins - he knew how dangerous Galran claws and fangs could be. Still, he might have a chance if he could catch Zarkon off guard.

Shiro rushed at Zarkon and struck, but the Galra swung aside at the last second. He brought his elbow down on Shiro’s back as Shiro staggered past, off-balance after his failed attack. Shiro fell to the ground with a pained grunt, then gasped as he was punted into the stars with a powerful kick. He landed back on the misty ground at a speed that would have shattered every bone in his body had he been in the real world. Even here, he struggled to pull himself back to his feet.

Zarkon let him take his time, still smirking openly, and Shiro shivered as he realized just how outclassed he was. Shiro wasn’t going to win this fight. But he couldn’t run, and he refused to surrender. Shiro charged at Zarkon again, this time avoiding Zarkon’s counterstrike. But every kick he made, every swing he took, Zarkon blocked easily.

“You think you could take my place as the Black Paladin?” Zarkon laughed at him. “You’re nothing but a child.”

“I was chosen for a reason,” Shiro grunted, darting away from a claw swipe. “I’ve been training to fly the Black Lion my entire life.”

“Training to fly,” Zarkon echoed scornfully. “You don’t even know the extent of what she’s capable of. The moment the Lion is once again mine to command, there won’t be a force in the universe powerful enough to defeat me.”

Something about those words rang oddly to Shiro’s ears. He’d been taught to bond with his Lion, to be her partner. Not to command her. But it sounded like Zarkon wanted domination over the Black Lion, along with the rest of the universe.

All of a sudden, Shiro wasn’t just fighting to protect his team. He was protecting his Lion too.

“You aren’t worthy to be the Black Paladin anymore,” Shiro said, realizing the truth as he spoke the words. “You used to be a leader, someone to look up to. Now you’re just a common thief.”

Zarkon roared with rage. He picked Shiro up by the neck and threw him backwards, and this time he didn’t wait for Shiro to get back on his feet, instead reaching out to rake his claws across Shiro’s face. Shiro squirmed back, enough that only the tip of a single claw reached him, but it was enough to tear a deep gash across the bridge of his nose. Blood streamed down his cheeks, and he choked on a cry.

Distracted by the pain, Shiro didn’t even realize that Zarkon had moved until the emperor ground his boot down onto Shiro’s right wrist. Shiro screamed and tried to yank his arm away, but he couldn’t move it. His vision began to darken as the pain overwhelmed him. The last thing he saw before his eyes flickered shut was a brilliant beam; the Black Lion was on her feet now, roaring, and directed her shot directly at Zarkon.

The Emperor vanished the moment before the beam struck, leaving Shiro gasping on the ground. He looked up at the Black Lion in awe. “You saved me,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

And now he could feel her in his mind, stroking and soothing, and immensely sad. He couldn’t stay here under her protection, he realized; that would be the same as dying. But he was scared to go back, afraid of the pain that was waiting for him.

I will come for you, she promised. Honerva had done something to her, drained her power, but the instant she could move she was coming to rescue her paladin.

Shiro nodded, feeling equally exhausted, and followed the pull of his body back to the real world before letting himself fall into true unconsciousness.

***

Shiro wasn’t sure how long it had been since he was captured. At least a few movements now, he thought, but most of it was a hazy blur of pain. The druids had stuck a metal arm on him, to replace the one Honerva took. Sometimes, sentries would drag him from his cell to the lab, where Honerva would do something to the arm that made it glow a sickly purple and burn until he cried out. He wasn’t sure what the point of it was. To control him somehow? To punish him for not giving in to Zarkon?

They were feeding him now, enough that didn’t actually starve, but he was pretty sure they were putting something in the bland porridge, something that dampened his connection with the Black Lion and made his brain feel fuzzy. Made him hear things that weren’t there, like Pidge’s giggles or his mother’s quiet singing.

“Shiro? Shiro!” See, that? That sounded like Keith’s voice. But it couldn’t be, because Shiro’s team was still safe at home, learning how to be paladins without him. It had to be his mind playing tricks on him. Shiro curled up tighter on the floor of his cell and wished for it to stop.

There was a hiss and a zap, and the door to Shiro’s cell opened a few inches, making him squint against the brightness of the hallway spilling in. The footsteps that rushed towards him sounded lighter than the sentries, and there was Keith’s voice again, this time crying, “What did they do to you?”

Shiro flinched away from the hands that reached for him, but they were Keith’s hands, Keith’s and Pidge’s, so he let them pull him to his feet and cling to him for a few moments.

“How?” he asked, a dozen questions rolled into a single word.

“We’ll tell you later,” Keith replied. “For now, let’s get you out of here.”

Shiro wanted desperately to get out of this place, but he couldn’t leave his Lion behind. And, despite the presence of his team, he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that he could go home and pretend that nothing had changed.

“The Black Lion too,” Shiro said. “Honerva hurt her somehow; she’s not going to be able to move on her own.”

“Hunk and Lance are already on it,” Pidge assured him. “Blue and Yellow should be big enough to get her carry her out if they have to.”

Shiro gaped. “You came in the Lions?”

Pidge blushed a little, but both she and Keith kept their chins up, defiant. “Iverson called you a traitor,” Keith said. “They weren’t going to rescue you, only Black. So we did what we had to.”

The confirmation hurt. A lot. But Shiro had told Zarkon the truth. It didn’t matter what the rest of his people thought of him. He was the Black Paladin, not for the sake of the Alteans, but for the sake of Voltron. For the sake of his team, a team which he was so proud of. And he had no intention of giving that up.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“We should go,” Keith said. “No point rescuing you just to stand around and get captured again.”

“Follow us,” Pidge added.

She guided them around patrols, through the halls of Zarkon’s base, until they reached a large empty hangar. Or not so empty, as it turned out, when Pidge grabbed his hand and dragged him up the ramp into the invisible Green Lion, parked in the middle.

“We’ve got Shiro!” she announced into the comms. “Did you get Black?”

“Tell Shiro his Lion is extremely lazy,” Lance said, his voice sounding strained. “He should consider making her run extra laps in the morning.”

They all grinned at that. “Get to the rendezvous point,” Keith ordered. “We’ll meet you there.”

“Copy that,” Hunk said.

The Green Lion lurched as it took off, and Keith reached out to steady Shiro, whose knees had finally decided they’d had enough and tried to buckle beneath him.

Keith’s hands drifted over Shiro’s metal arm, over the bruises peeking out from his prisoner jumpsuit, over the partially-healed cut on his nose from his fight with Zarkon on the astral plane.

“I’m sorry it took us so long,” Keith murmured.

“It’s okay,” Shiro said. “You came.”

***

They made it almost the entire way to the small moon where they’d stashed the Red Lion before the Galra caught up with them.

“So much for a quiet escape,” Hunk grumbled.

“You didn’t really think it would be that easy,” Lance replied.

“Okay, plan C,” said Keith. “Shiro? You feel up for some flying?”

No, Shiro didn’t really. His head was still swimming from the drugs, and Pidge’s wild maneuvers to avoid the Galra fighters’ shots weren’t helping. But Keith looked scared, and Shiro couldn’t stand that. He plastered as much confidence as he could manage into a smile, and answered, “Sure.”

He didn’t think Keith was convinced, but they had no other options. “Lance, Hunk, drop the Black Lion off as close to Red as you can, then get back in the air and cover us. Keith, you and I will run the instant Pidge lands.”

“Yes sir,” Keith said, and the others echoed him. That was new - Lance in particular normally made a point of never addressing Shiro with any sort of formality - and Shiro used the pride he felt to give himself the strength to stand tall.

That strength persisted as Pidge slammed into the ground going a little too fast, and Shiro and Keith stumbled out of Green towards their Lions. Black’s ramp extended to let Shiro in, although she displayed no other signs of life.

He stepped into the cockpit and lowered himself into the pilot’s chair and…nothing happened. “Come on,” he muttered. “We have to go.”

Still nothing. With the viewscreens dark, he couldn’t see the battle raging above him, and without comms he couldn’t hear his team’s frantic calls for him, but he could imagine it all too easily. He needed to be up there with them.

What could he do? Black said that Honerva had drained her power. Shiro didn’t have the mechanical skills that Hunk and Pidge did, but he knew that the Lions ran on raw quintessence. Maybe if he could connect deeply enough with Black, she could draw on Shiro’s own quintessence?

Shiro closed his eyes and reached out with his mind. He felt the lightest brush at the edges of his awareness and followed it, until he was standing once more in the starry plane, looking up at his Lion. This time, she was sprawled on her side, eyes dim, just as she was in real life.

“I know you’re tired,” he said. “I know you’re hurting. I am too. But the others need our help. I don’t know how much strength I have to give you, but whatever I have is yours.”

For a moment there was no response. But then shimmering violet tendrils started snaking their way out of his skin and towards the Black Lion. When they connected and completed the circuit, he felt it with the force of a slam into a steel wall, but he forced himself to stay still and let her take what she needed.

Time stretched and warped. He wasn’t sure how long it was before his legs, already shaky, finally gave out, and Shiro dropped to his knees. He could feel her concern. She couldn’t take any more from him; it would have to be enough.

Black pulled herself to her feet, planted them, and roared. Shiro slammed back into the cockpit, which was now lighting up around him. He grinned. “Let’s show ‘em what we’ve got.”

***

It wasn’t enough. The Lions were fast and powerful, but no amount of simulator time was enough to make up for the paladins’ lack of actual flying experience. Seasoned Galra fighter pilots were able to land hit after hit, even lining the Lions up for shots from the larger ships.

“We can’t take much more of this,” Pidge shouted as she dove out of the way of a canon blast only to have to reverse back into it to avoid hitting Lance. Shiro could see sparks coming off of the Green Lion, systems short-circuiting under the onslaught of energy. “Shiro, what should we do?”

There was an obvious answer, but it wasn’t one that he wanted to give. Not when he and Black were barely holding together, not before he’d had time to bury what he’d just been through deep in his mind so his team would never have to see. But, once again, he had no choice. “We’re going to have to form Voltron,” he said.

There was silence on the comms, then an incredulous, “What?” from Lance.

“I don’t know if we can,” Hunk protested. “We’re still just learning how to fly.”

“We can do this,” Shiro insisted. “We’ve been training for it our whole lives. We know each other’s minds, and we know our Lions.”

“Shiro’s right,” Keith said. “It’s the only way.”

“So how do we do it?” Pidge asked.

“Converge on me,” Shiro ordered. “Remember what we’ve learned. Imagine five becoming one.”

He pushed his thrusters, trying to gain distance from the Galra fleet to give them as much time as they could for the transformation. One by one they disengaged and followed him, until they were all flying in formation, evading shots in perfect unison.

Shiro could feel it as each of them slotted into place, their minds a familiar presence alongside his own. This time, he could feel the Lions shifting at the same time, and the shock of it was nearly enough to knock his concentration loose. It was a sensation utterly unlike anything he’d experienced; he almost thought his own internal organs were moving around. But he held on, and drew the pieces of Voltron to him, paladins and Lions combining to form a single entity.

Shiro knew the moment they looked into his mind and saw his memories of what the Galra had done. Feeling their horror, he instinctively tried to pull away, but there was nowhere for him to go. The others could sense him trying to retreat, and immediately the bond was full of Hunk’s comforting love, Lance’s reassuring apologies, Keith’s simmering protective rage, and Pidge’s more calculating but no less vicious fury. Shiro relaxed a little, and drew on their strength when they offered it to him.

The last bolt slid into place, and Voltron hovered before the Galra fleet. Suddenly, the fighter jets were nothing more than annoying mosquitoes, and the battle cruisers barely a threat.

“Keith, form sword,” Shiro said. “Let’s finish this.”

***

After Voltron decimated Zarkon’s fleet, they took off, putting as much distance as they could between them and the Galra base. Hunk was giddy with the victory, and he could feel the rest of the team’s elation through the bond. Behind Shiro’s, though, he could sense overwhelming exhaustion, so he opened a private comm link to Pidge and asked her to scan ahead to look for an uninhabited planet where they might rest for a few vargas. When she announced to the group that she’d found one, Shiro’s relief resonated through all of them.

Voltron split back into its component Lions, and they landed in a loose circle on a rocky plateau. While the others fussed around Shiro, Hunk got a fire going and then pulled some snacks out of his pouches to distribute around. Shiro accepted a packet of nuts and a careful hug, then leaned back against Keith, chewing sleepily.

“What do we do now?” Lance asked. “Do we go back home? They’re not going to be happy with us, since we stole the Lions. Not to mention Shiro.”

“We’re paladins,” Keith said. “We have a responsibility to protect Altea.”

“I’m not sure we do,” Shiro said slowly. Hunk turned to look at him in shock, and the other paladins did as well. What did Shiro mean? Was he working with Zarkon after all? No, that couldn’t be - the team would have known the instant their minds connected to Shiro’s. Surely he couldn’t hide something like that from them.

Seeing their suspicion, Shiro raised his hands, placating. “Of course, protecting Altea is important,” he said, and Hunk slumped with relief. Shiro continued, “But Voltron is meant to be the defender of the entire universe. While Zarkon’s been keeping the paladins busy, planets throughout the galaxy have been falling to the Galra. I think we should use Voltron as it was meant to be used - for the defense of freedom everywhere.”

Wow. That was...Hunk need a few ticks to think about it.

“The instructors won’t be happy with us,” Lance said, but he didn’t sound too upset at the idea.

“I won’t pretend it will be easy,” Shiro continued. “And if any of you wants to go home, I won’t stop you. But I think this is what we’re meant to be doing.”

Keith nodded. “I’m with you, Shiro,” he said.

“Me too,” Pidge echoed.

“Hunk?” Lance said.

Hunk hesitated. Shiro smiled gently at him. “It’s okay, Hunk, really,” he said.

“No, it’s not that,” Hunk said. “Well, it kind of is? I’m scared of the Galra and I want to just go home to my nice warm bed. And I know we managed to form Voltron just now and we were really badass, but one giant robot, no matter how cool, is no match for Zarkon’s entire army. But…Altea isn’t safe either, now that we know the Galra can kidnap Shiro straight from the barracks. And you’re right, it’s not fair that only Altea gets extra protection.” He grinned. “Besides, how would you form Voltron with only one leg?”

Shiro smiled back. “So we’re all agreed, then,” he said.

Hunk nodded, along with everyone else. He looked around the fire at their determined faces, then up at his Lion, and past her to the twinkling stars. They were alone on an alien planet with no supplies and no backup, preparing to take on an entire empire. But as a team, Hunk thought, they could do anything.


End file.
